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I looked round and saw Sukhanov, Gorky's friend, formerly one of the cleverest writers on the Novaya Jizn. I jumped up and shook hands with him. "What, have you gone over to the Bolsheviks?" I asked. "Not at all," said Sukhanov, smiling, "but I am working here." "Sukhanov thinks that we do less harm than anybody else," said Pavlovitch, and laughed.
Sukhanov was against concessions on principle, and regretted that the Mensheviks were in favour of them. He pointed eloquently to the seal on some of the doors, but told me that he had started a new paper, of which he showed me the first number, and told me that the demand for it was such that although he had intended that it should be a weekly he now expected to make it a daily.
Three months later he was already working with us. One day he told me that in the big diary of the revolution which he is writing, and will write very well, he had some special abuse for me. 'I have none for you, I said, 'but I will show you one page of my own diary, and I showed him that page, and asked him to look at the date. Sukhanov is an honest fellow, and was bound to come."
We talked, of course, of their attitude towards the Bolsheviks. Both work in Soviet institutions. I asked, What if they should be told to hold a Constituent Assembly or submit to a continuance of the blockade? Sukhanov said, "Such a Constituent Assembly would be impossible, and we should be against it."
Of the Soviets, one or other said, "We stand absolutely on the platform of the Soviet Government now: but we think that such a form cannot be permanent. We consider the Soviets perfect instruments of class struggle, but not a perfect form of government." I asked Sukhanov if he thought counter revolution possible.
"Go and talk to him and he'll tell you all there is to be said against us. And there's lots to say." Sukhanov was an extremely bitter enemy of the Bolsheviks, and was very angry with me when, over a year ago, I told him I was convinced that sooner or later he would be working with them. I told Pavlovitch the story, and he laughed again.
"A long time ago," he said, "Sukhanov made overtures to me through Miliutin. I agreed, and everything was settled, but when a note appeared in Pravda to say that he was going to work in this Committee, he grew shy, and wrote a contradiction. Miliutin was very angry and asked me to publish the truth. I refused, but wrote on that day in my diary, Sukhanov will come.
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